links for 2009-08-31

A further increase could be politically difficult for Obama, with members of his Democratic Party increasingly uneasy about the war and congressional elections due next year.

The White House sought on Monday to pin the blame for the grave state of the war in Afghanistan on the Bush administration, which made Iraq its top military priority.

"This was underresourced, underfunded, undermanned and ignored for years," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"The president is focused on ensuring that we meet measurable benchmarks. … It's going to take some doing."

After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

Top political analyst Charlie Cook, in a special August 20 update to subscribers, wrote that “the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and congressional Democrats.”

“You need to back these congressmen and let them know you’re not going to let them be steamrollered by a bunch of people who have been frightened,” Clinton said, in reference to the town hall tumult of the last few weeks. “Don’t let anybody tell you that President Obama wants to ration health care. We are rationing health care in America.”

“I’m not a very good politician any more; I just say what I think,” Clinton said. “But I have been waiting for this for 40 years … to recreate the American dream.”

Gore, in a much shorter set of remarks, was loose-limbed and noticeably thinner than in recent years — and he seemed to elicit the night’s most emotional moment.

The Tucson area Tea Party Coalition held a meeting at Rincon High School in Tucson this weekend. Over 1,000 people showed up at the event… including one violent counter-protester.

The pro-Obama thug disrupted the meeting screaming– marched to the front of the room holding a sign——
And, then SLAMMED AN ATTENDEE IN THE FACE with his elbow!

On the very day Ted Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery near his two brothers, a Boston Globe editorial argued to undo part of his legacy.

The pertinent portion of Mr. Kennedy's legacy has to do with his strident opposition, despite a career of enthusiastically imposing environmental initiatives and costs on others, to the building of a wind farm on Cape Cod (the graphic at top right is from a 2006 post at a Greenpeace web site).

The ever-opportunistic Globe wrote a 450-word editorial virtually demanding that President Barack Obama get work started on Nantucket Sound right now, this very instant